SUNBURSTS | Demonstrations and Vigils

This past week, the Cornell and Ithaca communities came together to take a stand for and honor the causes and conflicts they are most passionate about. Cornell Graduate Students United — Wednesday, Oct. 2

Last Wednesday, approximately 180 Cornell Graduate Students United members and supporters gathered in front of Bailey Hall and Day Hall to protest the suspension of international graduate student Momodou Taal. (Ming DeMers/Sun Photography Editor)

CGSU argued the union should be able to bargain Taal’s suspension with the University under a Memorandum of Agreement reached last July. Taal taught a First-Year Writing Seminar class before his suspension, meaning his working conditions were impacted by the University’s disciplinary action.

MARGULIES | Winter in Day Hall

Winter is tenacious in upstate New York. It endures far longer than it should, and brings with it a darkness that makes you bury your head and pray for spring. I thought of our long, dark winter when the editors of The Sun asked if I would jot a few lines about the encampment on the Arts Quad. And I thought about Emerson, who spoke at Boston’s Masonic Temple in 1841, and whose remarks I have edited for space:

The two parties which divide the state are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made. Conservatism is always apologizing, pleading a necessity; it must saddle itself with the mountainous load of the violence and vice of society, must deny the possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the prophet; whilst innovation is always in the right, triumphant, attacking, and sure of final success.